This story is part of Straight Fire, an open-ended love letter to all things dragon. Get more fire here.
How do you name a dragon? In The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, a dragon’s name is a representation of its legacy; a name appears to be earned, not simply given, according to some theories. Dragon language is power and magic, something the player-character Dovahkiin is collecting throughout Skyrim — the words of power, or Rotmulaag in dragon language. Three words put together is how a spell (or shout, in Skyrim terms) is enacted. But these words are also what makes up a dragon’s name — a peek into its past.
“Ah, I forget how little you know of the dov,” dragon Paarthurnax tells the Dovahkiin. “Our names are always made up of three Rotmulaag — words of power.”
There are 23 named dragons in Skyrim, each with its own name that can be translated to English from dragon language, thanks to an effort by the folks at Thuum.org. The website is a documentation of and dictionary dedicated to preserving Dovahzul, a fantasy language in Skyrim, collected and analyzed by lots of contributors, pieced together from “in-game dialogue, books, music, developer notes, and external official guides in print or online,” according to the website.
Thuum.org’s translations of made-up Skyrim language is a player project, and despite not officially being “canon,” the resource has had an outsized impact on the community. It’s a resource that, despite its current inactivity, is a historical documentation of a beloved invented language. Skyrim wouldn’t be the same game without its language, and the Skyrim fan community wouldn’t be the same without Thuum.org.
As told by Thuum.org (which is named for the magic shout in Skyrim), the dragon language is an ancient language within the world of Elder Scrolls, spoken by dragons and ancient Nords (a human race in Skyrim) looking to harness the power of dragons. “In the time that Skyrim takes place, the dragon language is known and spoken by a rare few, including the remaining dragons and the Greybeards who follow the Way of the Voice,” according to Thuum.org, where you can take lessons in Skyrim’s language. The lessons are broken down into two sections: grammar and practice. Understanding the language and its shouts allows for a fuller understanding of each of Skyrim’s dragons — both the named and unnamed.
So how do you name a dragon? In Skyrim, dragons’ names are made up of three words. Alduin is Skyrim’s most powerful dragon, and it should be no surprise that his name translates to “destroyer devour master.” In The Elder Scrolls Online’s in-game book “Varieties of Faith: The Nords,” Alduin is described as “the horrible, ravaging firestorm that destroyed the last world to begin this one.” The name befits the dragon who’s being hunted throughout Skyrim for his tyrannical rule of the world. More complicated is that of Paarthurnax, Alduin’s younger sibling, who both aids the Dragonborn and the atrocities of Alduin’s rule; his name translates to “ambition overlord cruelty,” a nod to the way humans perceive him and his desire for power.
Durnehviir translates to “curse never dying,” per Thuum.org. So it makes sense you’d find it in Skyrim’s Dawnguard expansion’s Soul Cairn, where the undead reside; Durnehviir is a decaying dragon tricked into life overlooking the Soul Cairn. Sahrotaar’s name, which translates to “mighty servant,” is a nod to his role in Skyrim expansion Dragonborn after Miraak — the first dragonborn, who betrayed the beasts — bent his will and made him a servant.
These named dragons are in contrast with others flying above Skyrim without names — these are described only in English. The weakest among them are brown, typically flying around the earlier locations in Skyrim. There are also blood dragons, elder dragons, frost dragons, ancient dragons, revered dragons, legendary dragons, skeletal dragons, and serpentine dragons. Each of the named dragons in Skyrim and its expansions falls into one of these categories of dragon, though.
The big difference between the named and unnamed dragons is that the named dragons have narrative implications (Alduin is resurrecting the named dragons, after all) and bits of lore tucked here and there; if you pick up “Atlas of Dragons, 2E 373” in-game, you’ll learn a little about dragons both dead and alive — and the power of words and names.
You can learn a lot about a dragon from its name, but you can learn a lot about a game from its community, too. There is a world, perhaps, where players have no further understanding of Skyrim’s dragons or their names, and what a shame that would be.
“For the mighty roars of the beasts, even when those roars contained fire, or ice, or some other deadly magic, were actually much more — they were words,” fictional author Hela Thrice-Versed wrote in “Dragon Language: Myth no More.” “Words in an ancient, though decipherable, tongue.”
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